THE 5-STEP CHECK THAT MAKES A STRANGER STOP ON YOUR POST
Every month I sit down and read creatives' content back to them on screen. Real posts, real captions, real analytics, from authors and artists who have put genuine work into them. The thing that comes up most has nothing to do with how often they are posting.
It is that the post got written for the people who already follow them.
You can feel it once you know what to look for. The opening line assumes you know who she is. The caption assumes you read the last three posts. The genre never gets said out loud, because of course you know the genre, you have been here a year. Meanwhile the reader she actually needs has never heard of her, and scrolled past about two seconds ago.
I work as a marketing coach for authors and artists, and most of what I do is this: I look at one real post and I name the one line that is costing you a stranger. Here are the 5 steps I would walk through on yours, in order.
Step 1: Start strong. Put your hook on screen at 0 seconds
You have about one second to grab somebody. That is the whole window, and everything else in this post depends on you taking it seriously.
So the text that gives a stranger a reason to stay has to be on screen at the very first frame. Not fading in. Not typing itself out letter by letter. Already there, readable, the moment the video appears.
I see this one constantly, and it is usually the most expensive mistake on the page, because the fade takes two seconds and the decision takes one. Open your last video, drag the playhead to zero, and look at what is actually there. If the answer is a pretty image and nothing else, you have found your first fix.
Step 2: Dive in. Give your caption its own hook
Your on-screen hook and the first line of your caption are two separate chances to catch the same person, and they should be doing two different jobs.
When they say the same thing word for word, you have spent both chances on one sentence. If that sentence did not land the first time, there is nothing left for the second attempt to try.
So let the video hook do the stopping, and let the caption hook do something else: ask the question, name the feeling, give the bit of context the video had no room for. Two doors into the same room.
Step 3: Get specific. Name your genre out loud
This is the step people argue with me about, so let me be plain: naming your genre will widen your reach.
It feels like the opposite. It feels like shutting people out. What actually happens is that a thriller reader sees the word thriller and immediately recognizes that you are talking to her, and she stops. Nobody stops for "a book". Everybody stops for their own genre.
There is a second thing happening underneath. Those words are how the platform works out who to put you in front of. Get specific and you hand it the information it needs to find more of the right people, which is exactly how you reach past the followers you already have.
So say it. Attention, thriller readers. If you love sci-fi with a fierce main character. Whatever yours is, out loud, in the first line.
Step 4: Stay focused. Cut the video to the length people watch
Go into your analytics and find your average watch time. Then make your next video that long.
If people are leaving at 6 seconds, make a 6-second video. It sounds brutal and it is genuinely freeing, because it takes the pressure off filling time you did not need. The video loops for people anyway, and somebody reaching the end is what tells the app your work is worth pushing to more people.
While you are in there, look for the gaps where nothing is happening on screen. Those quiet seconds are where people leave.
Step 5: Finish strong. Say where to buy it
Tell people where to get it. "Available on Amazon." That is the whole step.
I know it can feel pushy. It reads as helpful, and it is the sentence that stops somebody thinking "I will find that later" and then never finding it. People do not act on things that are not clear to them, and you cannot ask a stranger to go and work out where your book lives.
Now read the whole thing back as a stranger
Here is the check that holds all 5 together. Look at your last post as somebody who has never heard of you, does not know you, and has no reason to trust you yet. Can she tell what you make, who it is for, and what to do about it?
That is the standard, because a stranger is who you are reaching every time you post. Get those 5 steps right and you are giving her everything she needs to decide!
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